Burden of Proof is on Atheists

[KWED]

No thats not evidence
That is just an assertion

If there was no record of said skeleton, nor any scientific papers, experimental data, archaeological records, etc to refer to, then you might be right.
However, there are large amounts of objective, verifiable, physical and experimental evidence. You may as well say that you don't believe in Madagascar simply because you haven't been there. Your own ignorance does not apply to everyone (arguments from ignorance and incredulity).

 

[leroy]

Thanks for that, haven't laughed that hard in ages.




Ah good you finally acknowledge that, progress of a sort.



Yes, you replied with a flat denial, but still no objective evidence that the universe requires a deity to fine tune it. Or anything else come to that, only the assumption that these parameters are highly improbable, despite the fact we have only one universe to examine. Like finding a blue flower, and claiming something must have made it blue, as it is too improbable for it to be blue without inexplicable magic.



I have no idea what "under those lines means", and your expectations are entirely irrelevant to me and to any debate. I don't believe your unevidenced assumption that the universe needs a deity to fine tune it, or needs anything to fine tune it. It is your claim, so I don't have to do anything, as the burden of proof is entirely yours. If you find bare assumptions compelling argument that is up to you, if it is not a bare assumption then why haven't [resented any objective evidence that a deity was needed to fine tune the universe, or that anything is needed come to that? You haven't even offered a rational argument for the assumption. Just because something "seems" improbable to use, means nothing, and if you had read the entire paper I linked you'd know that, so I suspect you didn't even read it.



You want to me acknowledge that you managed to respond to a post, with a bare denial, seriously? Ok you responded to my post, where I pointed out the conclusion of your argument, namely that a deity or something was needed to fine tune the universe, is pure unevidenced assumption.

Happy?

I responded to your particular objection. The fact that you are changing the topic, strongly suggest that I SUCCEDED in my rebuttal.

 

[Sheldon]

Paul is a contemporaey source.

So are you willing to admit that you are wrong and that we do have atleast 1 contemporary source?

Paul never met Jesus, did you seriously not know this?

 

[KWED]

If there is a God he could create a FT universe if he whants.

And if there isn't a god, he wouldn't have left any physical evidence of his existence.
There is no physical evidence of god's existence, therefore god does not exist.
QED.

 

[KWED]

I am not crazy, because there is my 2022 publication in arXiv:

Crazy people can be published.
John Forbes Nash was a Nobel Prize winner, but also about as batcrap crazy as you can get.
So, being a co-author on a paper published online is definitely not evidence that you aren't delusional about other issues.

 

[Sheldon]

I responded to your particular objection.

With a flat denial that it was based on nothing more than assumption, so what is it your conclusions that the universe needs a deity to fine tune it based on then, don't keep me in suspense.

The fact that you are changing the topic, strongly suggest that I SUCCEDED in my rebuttal.

I did not change the topic, but again thanks for another belly laugh, since you are now clearly evading defending the idea that your conclusion that a deity, or anything else, was needed to fine tune the universe, is anything more than a subjective assumption, based on the subjective notion that this universe's narrow parameters for supporting organic life, seem unlikely.

We are awaiting with baited breath for you to demonstrate something, anything, that shows you have more than your bare subjective assumption, see how that works? You make a claim, I ask you to support it, not the science behind the parameters, but your unscientific collusion that this means a deity or something was required to fine tune the universe.

Do you have anything at all? Only the more you evade the request, the more obvious it becomes you don't, and it was in fact pure assumption.

 

[Trailblazer]

you are implying there must be evidence, because all these people would not otherwise believe in a deity.

I don't expect you to acknowledge it, as you never do,

I am not implying that there must be evidence, because all these people would not otherwise believe in a deity, I am asserting that is the case.

However, I did not say that God exists because many or most people believe that God exists so it is not the fallacy of ad populum.

In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so."
Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia

God does not exist because many or most people believe that God exists.
God does not exist because there is evidence that God exists since God could exist and provide no evidence at all.

 

[KWED]

No word "MAGIC" in this definition:

A miracle is an event that seems inexplicable by natural or scientific laws[2] and accordingly gets attributed to some supernatural of praeternatural cause. Various religions often attribute a phenomenon characterized as miraculous to the actions of a supernatural being, (especially) a deity

The OED defines miraculous as "The power of apparently influencing events by using mysterious or supernatural forces".

 

[KWED]

NO. I know better my God than any disbeliever on Earth. Look, who knows better of driving: driver, or non-driver?
Better of fighting: fighter, or non-fighter? Believer knows more of belief, than non-believer.

Who knows a disease best? The person suffering it or the doctor?
Who knows a crime best? The victim or the detective who solves it?
Who knows crap best? The person who produces it or the coprologist?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

That’s my point, you are not interested in a conversation , you what to focus on vocabulary and spelling.

The difference between "Ganesha" and "Gilgamesh" isn't a spelling difference; they're from completely different religions.

If someone said that they knew Christianity but called Lazarus "Lao-Tse", would you think they had a clue about Christianity? That's on the scale of the error you made.

Edit: here's where I'm coming from:

- someone who actually had good reason to believe that Christianity is better supported than other religions would know a fair bit about other religions... the major ones at the very least.

- someone who knew a fair bit about the major religions would know a fair bit about Hinduism.

- someone who knew a fair bit about Hinduism would know better than to call Ganesha "Gilgamesh."

- so the fact that you'd make this sort of error tells me that you don't have good reason to believe that Christianity is the best-supported religion.

(Despite whatever your youth pastor told you)

 

[Trailblazer]

You didn't say many, you said atheists.

I said many:

Trailblazer said: That is no straw man. Many atheists claim that the 93% of people in the world who believe in God are all crazy.

but I will retract that now and say some atheists. Do you want an example? This transpires on another forum.

I am extremely dubious that many atheists make the claim as well. I will accept that some atheists resort to using that word as rhetoric on occasion, but your claim was clearly and unequivocally a straw man.

You need to be more careful when you throw fallacies around, accusing people of fallacies they did not commit.
When you do that you lose credibility.

What I said was not a straw man because I was not giving the impression of refuting an argument that you made, since you did not even present an argument.

A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". Wikipedia

 

[KWED]

I don't know what you are talking about since I have not lied to you.

There is little to be gained from arguing with a random text generator.

 

[Sheldon]

Oh, so you have evidence that the universe is actually "fine tuned"? Or are you simply asserting it because it appears that way to you?

He won't tell me, maybe it's a secret, but when he made the bare subjective assumption, and I pointed it out, he seemed to think saying "no it isn't" was a compelling rebuttal. You have to see the funny side of that at least.

 

[Sheldon]

You didn't say many, you said atheists.

I said many:

No you didn't, you added that later. Here is the original straw man verbatim...note the word many is not used at all. I quoted it in my original response as well.

as atheists would have us think.
But it is illogical that 93% of people in the world who believe in God are all crazy, because if they were the world could not function at all.

 

[Sheldon]

Yes I do believe that the evidence for Christianity is better than the evidence for any other religion, specifically the evidence for the resurrection is better than the evidence for any other miracle.

What evidence, the bible only contains the claim, not evidence. It is at least second hand hearsay, from unknown authors, decades after the fact. You even thought Paul was a contemporary eyewitness, and he never met Jesus.

 

[Trailblazer]

No you didn't, you added that later. Here is the original straw man verbatim...note the word many is not used at all. I quoted it in my original response as well.

It is true that I added that later but it is not true that it is a straw man.

It was not a straw man because I was not misrepresenting any argument that you made.

A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". Wikipedia

 

[KWED]

All I am saying is that if we postulate the existence of God some unsolved mysteries would be solved.

No they wouldn't
They would still be mysteries because you haven't explained god.
A far better solution would be to simply replace "God" with "natural process" in your argument. At least we know natural processes actually exist and are responsible for things happening.
Not sure how much simpler I can explain this fundamentally important concept.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Rubbish. Most atheists, like me, do not say "there is no God." Instead, we are much more likely to say, "I can see no reason whatever to believe in the existence of a God, so I don't believe it." And that's all. There is no burden of proof involved in stating a lack of belief arising from a lack of reason to believe.

TRANSLATION:
"Evangelicalhumanist's personal unscientific opinion is what there is no God." Why unscientific? Because there is no hypothesis of God's non-existence in Science yet.

If you are going to pretend you are "translating," (or clarifying my words), then it would be significantly more honest of you not to alter my meaning entirely.

There is no hypothesis about flying horses, either, but the fact is, since I've never seen one (outside of movie fantasies), and no something about what it would take in wingspan to lift that much weight off the ground (not to mention the chest muscles required to pull it off, I don't believe in them either. Sure, it's unscientific, because as I said, there's no hypothesis -- but that doesn't mean you get to claim they do exist, simply because, with no hypothesis, it is not proveable.

 

[KWED]

Why not? There is infinite mystery of God.

So you admit that god doesn't actually explain anything. It simply pushes the mystery back a step by introducing another level of mystery.
How is that in any way a satisfactory solution? Are you sure you were involved in writing a scientific paper, because all your arguments on here suggest otherwise.

 

[Trailblazer]

What evidence, the bible only contains the claim, not evidence. It is at least second hand hearsay, from unknown authors, decades after the fact. You even thought Paul was a contemporary eyewitness, and he never met Jesus.

The Bible contains the claim but it is also the evidence that supports the claim.
Of course that is circular but it is all Christians have for evidence.